Eighteen
by Sokka17
Summary: One shot. Soda's last thoughts in Vietnam.


There's blood.

It's everywhere - on the ground, the trees, the gooks, the sky, the-

Me.

It's all over me.

I can feel it. It's pushing it's way up, through my veins, through my skin, through the holes in my body. It's warm and it's wet. My clothes stick to me, the same way my DX shirt would after pumping gas all day in the summer...

It hurts.

Who knew being shot could hurt so much? It's a pain like no else - worse than the time I tore my leg up riding, more than the time I got hit with that chain in a rumble. For a minute, while I'm lying there in the mud, squeezing at my stomach to staunch the blood, I think of Dally. Is this how he felt, two years ago, crumpling underneath the streetlight in the lot? He had four bullets in him, they said - I've only got two.  
And it hurts like hell.

I can't move my head. I can't see anything but the thick branches of the jungle trees and the sky. It's blue, soft and happy. I wish it would stop.

There's noise. Everyone's screaming, swearing - the Viet Cong and American's alike. Bullets shriek through the air, and somewhere, a grenade tears in the air with a roar. I feel the ground rumble.

Steve's beside me, like he's always been. He's firing, machine gun against his shoulder, and I think, for a minute, that he's too young to know how to use it. But he's using it, viciously. His helmet's fallen off, and his hair is in his eyes. He's crying as he shoots, his body jerking and shaking almost uncontrollably. He's moving too much, maybe to make up for the fact that I'm not moving at all.

The pain is worse. There's more blood, but I can't see it. My head won't move - nothing on me will. All I can do is lie on my back and watch the sky smile and Stevie cry and feel myself die.

Oh, God, I'm dying.

The realization hits me harder than the bullets did. _I'm dying._ Panic sets in. My chest hurts suddenly and everything blurs. It takes me a minute to realize I'm crying.

Steve suddenly throws down his rifle, even though the battle is still screaming on. He falls to his knees next to me. He's still crying and that scares me. I've only seen him cry twice in 11 years - when my parents died and when Dallas died.

_What does that mean for me?_

_  
_"Soda?"

_  
_I don't answer. I'm thinking of Dally again, how he must have felt that night. And I don't mean the pain - how did it set with him, knowing he was going to die? I know he wanted to, but wasn't he nervous at all? Wasn't he scared? Shit, I'm scared.

"Soda!"

Steve's got his hands on my shoulders, then my face. His fingers are in my hair, short as it is, pulling at it like I used to do to Mickey's mane.

"Soda - please -"

I almost speak, but I can't. My throat's too dry - everything's too dry. I feel drained, stiff, cold.I couldn't move even if my life depended on it.

Steve's sobbing now. His hands are shaking in my hair. His tears runs down his cheeks to his chin, down his neck, inside his shirt collar. A few wind down the side of his nose and fall off the tip of it, onto my face. I wish more would.

"Sodapop, please," He gasps. His whole body is moving with the force of his fear; I feel my heart pick up its pace with it, until it's moving as fast as machine gun bullets in my chest. "God, no, not you. Anyone but you, too-"

I know what he means. I'm thinking again of Dally, and not just Dally. Johnny too, and Mom and Dad. Four gone already. I make five.

_Ponyboy._

_  
_ What about him? Him and Darry and Two Bit and Sandy- The list goes on. Their names spin through my head, their faces and bodies and being melting into one colossal head ache.

I remember Darry's face in the hospital that night we got Pony back. I'de never seen him cry before - would he cry again, and hold onto Ponyboy like the kid was the only thing keeping him on his feet? I hoped he would, for Pony's sake.

Ponyboy, God- I don't know how he'll take it. He's been broken so much. Mom, Dad. Dally, Johnny, Bob. Me.

I can't think it. I can't think like this - I'll make it. That's what Steve's telling me. His forhead's pressed against mine, his tears sliding off of his face onto my skin. His lips move against my cheek; I can feel what he's saying, more than I can hear it.

_You'll make it, man. Soda- c'mon. Don't. Don't do this to me. Don't. I fuckin' need you-_

_  
_I wish I could talk. I wish everything would stop spinning, stop fading, stop hurting. Just for a minute, so I can tell him that I'm sorry, he's the best friend I ever had, that I remember the time in second grade we got into a fist fight over the last cookie at the Christmas Party and how it still makes me laugh. I wish I could tell him that I love him, maybe more than I love Darry and Pony, in a different way - because he's Stevie, my buddy, my sidekick, my best friend...

I wish I could tell him to talk to Darry for me,ask him to be the one to deliver the news, instead of some cold professional Army dispatcher. He wouldn't be able to say what Steve can say, that I'll miss him more than I'll miss anyone else, that I love him, because he's my protector and teacher and big brother....And Ponyboy. I want Steve to tell him- Steve, tell him, _please_, that I love him so much, that it's killing me to think of him growing up without me. I never wanted to leave - not this life, not even Tulsa. I wanted to be there for him, for everything - his first date, his graduation, his marriage...It hurts like hell, knowing I'm going to miss it all.

And Two Bit. Tell him - tell him he's a buddy. Always has been. He may be drunk as shit and lazy as hell, but he's always been there, in the bad and in the good, with a joke or a story to make me laugh....Oh, God. I wonder if they tell blond jokes in heaven.

And - and Sandy. Stevie, find her. Tell her I love her and I forgive her and that if I had the chance, I'de still marry her, even though the baby was never, for even the tiniest moment, mine.

I wish I could say it all, but I can't. Life's not like the movies - you don't die with your last words on your lips, you die with them in your head. All your unspoken vows and regrets and confessions remain just that: unspoken. Yours, to cradle for all eternity.

My throats closing up. I can feel my breathing, heavy and thick and strained, in my chest. It's fighting to get past my throat, but it dies before it hits my lips. I'm going cold; it doesn't hurt anymore, my body. It's numb; it doesn't do anything.

My vision's fading. I can't see anything except Stevie's face, nose to nose with mine. It's red and angry and tight, all squished together and hurt, wet with his tears and my blood - and now it's grey. It's drifting farther and farther away, and all I can feel of him are his fingers in my hair, pressing lightly against my scalp-

I'm eighteen.

I can't die. I haven't fucking lived.  
_  
_


End file.
